Once a Teacher, Always a Teacher: Why Infection Prevention Is Education

Teachers and infection preventionists (IPs) may work in very different environments, but their professional lives have striking similarities. Both educate people whose behavior directly influences outcomes. Both must translate complicated information into something their audiences can understand and act upon. Both work behind the scenes, frequently without seeing the long-term effects of their efforts. And both can find themselves underappreciated, second-guessed, and emotionally exhausted despite the importance of their work.

In an interview with Infection Control Today^® (ICT^®), Jessica Werner, CEO of Northshore Learning in Minneapolis-St Paul, Minnesota, discussed the parallels between educators and IPs, from preparation and communication to burnout, professional growth, resource inequities, and the challenge of finding satisfaction when success can be difficult to measure.

Educators in Different Environments

Werner grew up in a medical family and was exposed to health care from an early age. Today, her work is centered on education, but she sees a clear connection between teachers and health care professionals.

“IPs and health care workers are teachers,” Werner said. “They're trying to share information that is critical in a lot of ways for people's survival.”

Teachers experience something similar. Both groups possess specialized knowledge and training, yet Werner noted that they are repeatedly challenged by people who question their expertise.

“These are like lifeline professions that we can't exist in a society without,” she said. “We need teachers, we need IPs, we need people willing to work in health care and infectious disease control.”

Preparation is another shared requirement. A teacher needs a lesson plan, just as an IP needs protocols and plans before an outbreak or exposure occurs. But preparation today also requires recognizing that people consume information differently.

“They want soundbites. They want short, sweet,” Werner said, noting that educators must continue adapting how they communicate while preserving accuracy. At the same time, audiences increasingly want to understand the “why” and see the data supporting recommendations.

For IPs, the parallel is obvious. Telling a health care worker to perform hand hygiene or follow a particular protocol may not be enough. Effective education helps the learner understand why that behavior matters.

When Caring Becomes Exhausting

Both professions also require considerable emotional labor.

Teachers encounter students carrying family problems, trauma, financial difficulties, and other challenges into the classroom. IPs similarly work with patients and health care professionals who bring their own pressures, fears, workloads, and experiences into every interaction.

That constant caregiving can have consequences for the caregiver.

“It can lead to a lot of burnout and compassion fatigue because we have students in front of us whose problems we can't solve,” Werner explained. “Most people go into teaching wanting to be a helper and a problem solver.”

The lesson is relevant to infection prevention, particularly for solo IPs and professionals who spend much of their careers preventing adverse outcomes that nobody notices precisely because they never occurred.

Don't Chase Every Shiny Object

Continual professional development creates another challenge. Teachers face new curricula and technologies, while IPs contend with emerging pathogens, evolving guidance, and evolving evidence.

Werner's advice is somewhat counterintuitive: Sometimes professionals need to add less.

“I actually see a bigger need to kind of tune some of that out and focus more on the foundations again,” she said.

For teachers, that means returning to questions such as whether students are learning and listening. In infection prevention, the equivalent may be returning to fundamentals such as hand hygiene, appropriate personal protective equipment, environmental hygiene, and standard precautions.

“Good teaching is still good teaching,” Werner said.

Working for Outcomes You May Never See

Perhaps the strongest connection between education and infection prevention is that professionals in both fields may never fully know their impact.

A teacher may never discover what happened to a student years after leaving the classroom. An IP cannot count every infection that never happened because someone cleaned their hands, properly donned PPE, disinfected equipment, or followed an isolation protocol.

Werner described this as investing in something larger than an immediately measurable reward.

“I want to invest in people long-term,” she said. “We know the impact is big. We know we're probably not going to see 99% of it in our lifetime.”

COVID-19 provided an unusual glimpse into the importance of professionals who often operate outside public view. Werner noted that the pandemic introduced many people to professions such as epidemiology and brought greater visibility to public health professionals working behind the scenes to protect communities.

For IPs, maintaining that sense of purpose can require intentionally recognizing their own successes and finding professional communities that understand the work.

Werner recommends simple gratitude check-ins: What went well today? Why am I here?

“We kind of have to celebrate our own wins a little bit,” she said. “Nobody's going to do it for us.”

Community matters as well, particularly for IPs who may be the only infection preventionist in their organization. Professional associations, conferences, colleagues, and online networks can provide something colleagues in other disciplines cannot always offer: understanding.

“If nobody understands, you have to find those people who do,” Werner said.

Whether the classroom contains students learning fractions or a hospital unit contains clinicians learning infection prevention practices, the underlying mission is remarkably similar. Prepare. Educate. Adapt. Care. Protect. And continue doing the work even when its greatest impact may never be visible.

As Werner put it: “Once a teacher, always a teacher.”